


Finding Another Love

by DarkenedHeart



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst??, Blood, Canon Divergence, Dark, Dark!Isabella, Evil!Isabella, F/M, Injured!Ed, Intent to Murder, Isabella Hating, M/M, Nygmobblepot, Oswald to the rescue!, Riddles stolen from the Internet..., Secrets, Violence, hurt/comfort??, knife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 11:50:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8577370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkenedHeart/pseuds/DarkenedHeart
Summary: No offense to the actor who portrays her...But, I (personally) feel as though the character "Isabella" was created for the sole reason to give Ed a reason to hate Oswald.Isabella: Hi! How are you? Let me be the perfect person. All the sudden I'm desperately in love with you for no reason.Say what? No. Na-uh. Let's fix things. (To what I thought was going to happen, but obviously didn't.)--- - --- - --- - ---Or, (the less whiny version): Isabella was only pretending to like Ed in order to get close enough to kill him.Then Oswald saves the day.





	

**Author's Note:**

> {Grr... I can't remember if Isabella called him 'Ed' or 'Edward' and I didn't care enough to look it up. So just, please, roll with it.}

Oswald clacked his cane harsher than he needed to as he left the insufferable woman's apartment.

How DARE she? How DARE some random woman show up -perfect face and attitude- and throw herself at Ed's feet and try to snatch the man from Oswald?

NO. No, no, no, no, NO, NO! 

Oswald pauses just outside his car to take a steadying breath.

His gut reaction is to have the woman taken care of. A little 'accident' and she's be gone from this world and out of his way. 

Clean, simple, and Ed would come back to his arms where he belonged.

Oswald opened his eyes and got into the car.

He couldn't do that. Not yet, anyway. If Ed found out what he had done, after being captured by the viper's clutches, there was a modicum of a chance the wonderful man would never forgive him and that was a far worse outcome.

Oswald clenches his jaw so tightly his teeth grind almost audibly.

Losing Ed to this 'Isabelle' woman cannot happen! He HAS to come up with something to get the THING away from his Ed...

 

The second Oswald gets home, he pulls aside one of his men and orders a full, invasive, and utterly complete background check on the Viper.

The man nods and scurries off to do as ordered.

Oswald drinks four fingers of bourbon to calm his nerves then goes to his study to think of all the ways to make a heartless creature disappear off the face of the earth.

 

\---

 

Ed giddily waits outside of Isabella's house, a wine in one hand and a small bouquet of flowers in the other.

He could get into her house and set up something romantic, it would be child's play for him, but he thought waiting outside for her would be more romantic. Him being the first thing she saw upon returning would be the best outcome. They would get all the etiquette niceties out of the way before even reaching the inside of the apartment and they could move on to more interesting subjects.

Isabella's car turns the corner and drives right up to Ed before stopping. Ed runs around the vehicle to open the door for her, a smile taking up his face before he even sees her beautiful face.

"Welcome home, Isabella," he tells her, handing over the flowers. "Shall I get your bags for you?"

"That would be very helpful, thank you, Edward," she smiles at him and his hear soars in the proverbial way as he goes to the trunk to get the luggage.

Ed carries the single suitcase, -Isabella packed rationally, not too much like those other petty women- and he followed his love up the stairs to her apartment, every step a promise to his heart until it felt ready to burst if they shouldn't come into contact upon passing the door.

After getting into the apartment, Ed realizes he neglected to speak of the social niceties, so he starts with that to get it over quickly. 

"How was the conference?" he asks, not caring but knowing it was necessary for a healthy relationship to talk about your significant other's hobbies.

"It was very informative," Isabella says with a lightness in her tone that made Ed think she meant something entirely different. 

Had she gone somewhere else? Was the conference a ruse? No, he had looked it up. It was a genuine occurrence.

So he asks her, "You don't sound as if you had a great time."

The woman of his dreams and nightmares sighs with a content smile as she turns to him, "I didn't go to the conference, Edward. I went home instead."

"Home?" Ed repeats, confused. Were they at the 'meeting the parents' stage already? Of all the things they've spoken of, family relations was not one of them. "Why did you go home, Isabella? Is someone in your family sick?"

"Deathly ill," Isabella laughs, which is wrong. Why would she laugh about someone being so ill? Was her mind failing her due to uncontrollable grief? "In fact. She's already dead."

She? She who? What was Isabella talking about?"

"I thought I could handle this, Edward," Isabella sighs, reaching into her hand bag for something. "I wanted to make this last. To make you fall so deeply in love with me that you'd-" she stops with a small laugh. "Well....It doesn't really matter now."

"I'm confused," Ed steps closer to the woman he loves, hands clenched tightly to his side so he doesn't reach out and grab her. He still doesn't trust himself being around her. Especially now that she looks exactly like Miss Kringle.

"You'll understand soon enough," Isabelle smiles at him, hands wrapping around his neck as she looks deeply into his eyes. "Everything will be clear soon."

There's a pinch on Ed's neck. He pulls back from his love, putting a hand to a spot even as the woman pulls back her arms; one of her hands holds a syringe.

"What?" is all Ed gets out before the world darkens and his body is sent to the ground and the depths of unconsciousness.

 

\---

 

"Here's what you wanted, boss," Oswald's man hands over a file of paperwork.

"Thank you," Oswald greedily takes the papers and lays it on his dining room table. "You can leave now. I'll call if I need anything else."

The man's nod and exit is lost to his boss as his attention is captured by the words on the various papers before him.

It's all boring. The woman really is a librarian of all things. Droll. Boring. Undeserving of such an enigma which is Edward Nygma.

Then Oswald finds it, his mouth open in shock as he stares at the few lines of words typed out on the crisp white paper.

"Isabella Frost, born Isabella Kringle, sister of Kristin Kringle."

Oswald's head snaps up as his body shakes in pent up anger.

He shouts, "WHERE IS ED?!"

 

\---

 

Ed wakes to the after affects of a mild sedative: nausea, blurred vision, lethargy, headache.

He takes in a deep breath before even daring to open his eyes. The situation he finds on the other side of his eyelids is confusing, to say the least.

Ed finds himself without his suit jacket and tied to one of the kitchen chairs in the middle of the living room. The furniture has been moved back to give as much space as possible and there are heavy plastic sheets on covering the wooden floors.

Isabella is sitting in front of him, perched perfectly on a stool with a knife twice the size of her hand held loosely in her hand.

She is so beautiful even like that but everything is so wrong, the smile Ed wants to give his beloved fights mightily with the frown of confusion that wants to form on instinct.

"Romeo and Juliet were found gasping for breath, lying in a puddle of water with broken glass all around," Isabella tilts her head. "What happened?"

"They were goldfish," Ed answers, confusion mounting. "Isabella, what is going on?"

"Tragedy," his love answers. "That's what Romeo and Juliet were. A tragedy. They loved each other so much they died for each other."

Is that what she wanted? Isabella wished to recreate on of her favorite tales?

"But you didn't die, Edward," Isabella adds darkly as she stands, knife resting against her side as she glares down at the man. "You killed Kristen Kringle with your own two hands, but when you realized what you had done, you kept yourself alive. Even though you claimed to love her."

"I thought your close appearance to her didn't matter," Ed tries to reason with the woman. He can't figure what she wants from him. He'd gladly give it if he just KNEW. "Isabella, what is going on?"

"What belongs to you but others use it more than you do?"

"Your name."

"What is my last name, Edward?"

"Frost."

"No."

Ed gapes at the woman as she leans over him, putting the knife right in his face. 

He finally finds his voice in the safety of his riddles, "If you have me, you want to share me. But if you share me, you no longer have me. What am I?"

Isabella smiles at him, "A secret."

"What secret are you keeping from me, Isabella?"

"My name is Isabella Kringle," she tells him without skipping a beat, she rests the blade against the man's shoulder as she whispers in his ear. "You killed my sister. And I am going to make you pay."

Ed barely feels the blade as it is pressed into his shoulder. His mind and heart are screaming at him as the woman he loves laughs in his face.

 

\---

 

"Why are you driving so SLOW?" Oswald snaps at the man in the driver's seat. "I could've been at the woman's house ten times over by now!"

"Sorry, boss!" the man says as he nervously looks at the fuming man in the back seat. "There's an accident or something. I can't get around it."

"For the love of-" Oswald opens the door and gets out. He stops long enough to shout at the man, "If you catch up to me, pick me up!"

Then Oswald quickly makes his way down the street on foot. It was only a few blocks to Isabella's house. Ed was supposed to meet the Viper once she returned from her convention. He couldn't risk letting the wonderful man be alone with the deceiver. He had to make sure Ed was alright with his own eyes. He had to make sure he knew what he was getting into.

As he tried to hasten his walk, he hoped Ed was still safe.

 

\---

 

"When you know what I am, then I am nothing. When you do not know what I am, then I am something. What am I?"

Ed heaves in a shuddery breath in order to answer, "A riddle."

The pain was registering hot and vivid now, making his vision swim as his breathing became more difficult.

"Riddles," Isabella laughs, wiping the knife slowly on Ed's left pant leg. "My sister loved them and we used to try to stump the other by making our own up. We never found could stump the other for very long."

"Isabella," Ed forces out, staring at the woman of now as her visage was one of another. "Please."

"Please!" Isabella laughs. "Oh, no, no-no little Edward. There is no more time for 'pleases' or even 'sorries'. No, I'm afraid this is time for an end. You need to return to your Juliet."

Isabella puts the knife on Ed's throat, just letting the metal sit against the skin, not cutting. Not yet. 

She leans forward, her lips whispering in the shell of her victim's ear, "What grows when it eats, but dies when it drinks?"

Ed takes another shuddering breath, letting the answer fall from his lips in the outward release, "Fire."

"Good boy," the woman smiles. "I'm going to kill you, Ed. Then I'm going to take you out to the woods and set your body aflame. I'm going to watch the flames eat at your corpse until there's nothing left but bones and ash."

Isabella leans back .

"It's more than you deserve."

Blood loss is making it difficult for Ed to stay conscious. He can't even feel his wound anymore. He can barely feel anything. Every part of his body is numb.

"Good-bye, Edward Nygma. Now you die," Isabella lifts her knife, aiming it for Ed's heart in a final stab that will end her inward hatred and his life.

A shot rings out and Ed jumps with what little strength he has. The woman he loved stares at something beyond him as red bloom out over her chest in a crimson fountain of morbid beauty.

Isabella falls back with her knife and Ed's vision blackens to the shouts of his name.

 

\---

 

Oswald had struggled up the stairs to the Viper's apartment, his arm sore from pushing against his cane to make his lame foot move faster and faster across the ground to get to the apartment.

He didn't know why he was pushing himself so hard. Perhaps it was the silence from Ed's phone. Perhaps it was the foreboding feeling he had that mounted with every passing second... Whatever it was, he needed to get to that apartment. He'd deal with the consequences if he ended up in the wrong.

He stops outside the door, trying to catch his breath as he raises his cane to slam it at the door to gain entrance, when he hears it. The most frightening thing since seeing his mother murdered right in front of him.

"Good-bye, Edward Nygma. Now you die."

It's said so coldly, filled with malice and hatred that Oswald has known far too often in his life.

And the meaning behind those horrible words has his pulling his gun and forcing down the door without any further thoughts.

Oswald sees a man in a chair and Isabella with a knife and he fires, hitting the woman in the chest and watching her bleed with almost joyful satisfaction.

The woman falls backwards, her death obvious, and he rushes around the chair shouting his love's name.

Ed is out cold in the chair, blood flowing form his shoulder against the pristine white of his shirt. Oswald cries out Ed's name as he shakes the man, trying to get him to open his eyes. But his love refuses.

Oswald shakes violently as he pulls out his phone to call the police. He shouts and curses and shouts some more for them to, "GET HERE NOW!"

Then once he's certain the incompetent person on the other end is doing what he has ordered, he strips out of his jacket and presses it against Ed's injury.

"Don't die, Ed, please, don't you dare die on me!" Oswald sobs as he pushes the too-large 'bandage' harder and harder to the wound until he can't feel his fingers clutching the fabric.

Eternity passes as Oswald begs Ed to open his eyes, talk to him, make any sort of noise.

Ed is silent. He's silent when the paramedics arrive. He's silent as they untie him from the chair and stabilize him for transport. He's silent as he's carried in a gurney down the stairs to the hospital. He's silent as Oswald protests and screams until he's allowed into the back with the paramedic to ride with his man to the hospital. He's silent as they wheel him away from surgery.

Ed is silent while Oswald falls apart in front of the swinging doors his love was just pushed through.

 

\---

 

Jim Gordon grimaces as he looks through the small window of the door where Penguin was keeping vigil over a wounded Nygma.

He had to go in there eventually, get Penguin's statement and try to piece together what happened, but he was stalling.

 

Surprisingly, it's Penguin who comes out to meet the police detective.

"Jim," Oswald smiles at the man with fake enthusiasm. "What can I do to help one of Gotham's finest? You are back at being a detective, am I right?"

"Yeah," Jim nods. "Just got back, actually. I, uh, I need a statement from you about what happened."

"Absolutely," the shorter man nods. "But, I'm afraid, it'll have to wait until after Ed is fully healed."

"Mr. Mayor," the detective can taste how wrong the words are to say but he powers through it. "Please, it will only take a moment."

"If it is such a small deal, then it can wait until later," Penguin offers back with forced calm. "Perhaps, in a few days, I'll have you over for dinner and lay the whole thing out for you. Does that sound reasonable?"

"No it doesn-"

"Good!" Oswald talks over him. "I'll have my people call your people."

 

With that, Penguin walks back into the room and closes the door in Jim's face, physically portraying his lack of willingness to help on the case.

Jim sighs as he rubs at his face.

There's no helping it. He'll have to come back later when Penguin was in a more...'giving' mood...

 

\---

 

Ed wakes to pain killers, a stiff shoulder, and an unidentified object surrounding his hand and offering heat.

He opens his eyes slowly so they can adjust to the harsh hospital lights. When everything goes from blurry to a manageable shape without his glasses, he turns his head towards the unidentified heat source.

Oswald is slumped over the bed, his hand covering Ed's as his finger curl around the back and towards the palm.

Ed stares at the hands, trying to figure out why the man would put his hand there when the pulse point was further up on the arm.

Just then, Oswald takes in a short breath, his head rising in alarm as his eyes dart around for a hidden danger. 

Ed watches him, noting the bags under his eyes, his disheveled clothes -the same ones he was wearing when he last saw him- and he surmises the man had been with him since he entered the hospital.

"You're awake!' Oswald smiles at the man, nervously pulling back his hand when he realizes it was still holding onto the other man's. "How-How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been stabbed," Ed deadpans, his voice extra gravelly and he frowns.

Oswald pours him a cup of water, bringing the paper cup right to the other man's lips instead of handing it over.

Ed takes a few tentative sips then nods to let the other man know he was done.

"What happened to Isabella?"

Oswald's smile falls from his face, his eyes looking away as he adjust his position in his seat.

"She's dead, Ed," Oswald says, forcing out his burning anger to try to sound sympathetic for the man he loved. "She tried to kill you and I shot her."

"Thank you."

Hope springs eternal as Oswald returns his attention to the man he adored.

Ed smirks at him, "Someone makes me, but does not want me. Someone buys me then give me away to someone else for free, but this person does not know he gets me. What am I?" 

Oswald shakes his head, unable to think of anything other than the fact the man he loved was safe, was talking to him, was HIS once more.

"A coffin," Ed inwardly scolds himself for the look of fear in the other man's eyes for the answer. "I'd appreciate it if you'd arrange for Isabella to be buried next to her sister, Kristin Kringle."

"Whatever you want," Oswald assures him with a nod. "I-I was so scared, Ed. I thought I'd lost you."

Ed looks away to glance at his bandaged shoulder, "Oddly enough, the thought of death never reached me. I kept my mind focused on breathing and listening to Isabella. I had no time to ponder the great beyond."

The two fall silent for a few moment. Then Oswald takes a deep breath and puts his hand back on the bed, right next to Ed's. But he doesn't reach for the hand, doesn't try to touch it, he just keeps his hands temptingly close.

"Ed...I...I need to tell....To tell you som-something," Oswald clumsily tries to gather his words but fear is shaking in his core as the man he loved turned his beautifully captivating eyes to look at him.

"Yes, Oswald? What is it?"

"I realize that this might...That this might not be the-the best time to bring this up," Oswald clears his throat, moving in his chair again even as his hand remains in the exact same spot. "But I've wanted to tell you this for days now and I...I fear it will tear me apart if I-If I keep it in much longer."

"Then by all means," Ed gestures to the man with his uninjured arm. "Say what you need to, Oswald. You are my savior. I am indebted to hear all you have to say in the least."

"You owe me nothing, Ed," Oswald assures him. "You have brought a new meaning of life to me. You have shown me that I-That I can live a life I only dreamed of!"

"I only displayed your potential," the other man counters with humility. "Your talent was already there, I merely showed the rest of the word."

Oswald can't stand it anymore. He can't hold back anymore. If he is rejected...It will be far greater than the pain he was already bearing.

So, in a desperate attempt to get the words out, he blurts, "I love you."

Ed stares at him.

Oswald swallows thickly under those intelligent eyes. 

After a full minute of silence, he slowly starts pulling his hand away.

Ed stops him by putting his hand over Oswald's.

"I was unaware of such deep affections," Ed explains as the other man's eyes dart from their hands to him. "If I had known, perhaps my infatuation of Isabella could have been quelled sooner."

Oswald can't wrap his brain around what the other man was saying. His heart is beating too hard in his chest, trying to beat out of his ribs to lay beside the man he adored.

"I may not bear such an emotion as love for you just yet, Oswald," Ed adds, a small smile teasing the corners of his mouth. "But I hold great respect for you and have had an attraction towards you since I laid eyes on you in the CCPD."

"So," Oswald swallows hope down once more so that it will not consume him. "You want to...? Can we...?"

"You just saved my life from a psychopath," Ed smiles. "I think a proper date would be in order for such a feat of love and bravery."

Oswald breaths out happily as he tightens his end of their joined hands.

His face hurts from his smile as he asks, "What is harder to catch the faster you run?"

Ed's eyebrows rise as he answer, "Your breath."

Oswald nods, "Every time you walk into a room....You take my breath away."

Ed's face reddens as he realizes...

'I might love this man already after all.'

 

\----

**Author's Note:**

> I stole the riddles off the internet...
> 
> ***I am legally inclined to state I own nothing.***


End file.
